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"Who's advocating violence?" Taxes as confiscatory. They say, "Give us your money or we will come and throw you in jail". That is violence. "Some might and do think hurting and causing harm to the people who can least afford it to be morally reprehensible." Not providing something is not the moral equivalent of active harm. Say I lived alone on a desert island. All I have to eat are bananas and fish. One day a ship comes by. They give me steak, potatoes and Diet Coke. This goes on for a week. Then one morning the ship leaves and I am back to having bananas and fish. Has this shi

For those of you who believe that you are taxed to little. Please go to http://treasurydirect.gov and pay as much extra as you want. That you would advocate violently taking money from others just because you don't want the government to live within its means is morally reprehensible. The problem with tax increases is that they do not raise more revenue. Never have, never will. Higher, lower taxes, it does not matter, revenue will remain at about 18% of GDP. You just cannot spend at 25% of GDP with that sort of revenue. The only option that actually works is to cut spending. Yes, it

It will depend on your unit's custom. In most cases the ECOH is separate from other COHs and it would be unusual to make an award to someone other than the Eagle(s). You should have a COH at least every 3 months and you can recognize the youth at any troop/team meeting. In this case, I would have recognized the victory in the team meeting and possibly again at the COH.

Our troop has 2-3 teams. I can't keep track, they change around. But generally we take two to ordeals. It can be an issue with troop activities. We include the major OA events in our calendar, but that does not always work out. This spring Vigil Weekend is the same as the Camporee & call out. Eagle92 that list sounds about right. We have a very fun coach who is constantly recruiting scouts. One year we only had 3 scouts elected. If it had been up to him we would have had the election again. For those in the troop, being on a ceremony team, especially a competitive one, is a statu

I've tried spinning this off but I get an OBDC error ("Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14' [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver] Incorrect syntax near '='. /forums/forum_library.asp, line 341") if anyone cares. Eagle92 mentioned this and it is my experience as well. We have a large lodge with about 1500 dues paying youth in 23 chapters. Even if we only counted the urban chapter we should be able to field at least 12 teams. I think there are actually only 6 or 7, and 3 of them are in our chapter (all but one member is in our troop). Granted it is a lot of wor

That certainly maxes out your team. I don't understand why it is so difficult to get ceremony teams.

My question was not about the size of the ring. We use some very small rings. It was about having 40 ordealists in a single ceremony. We try to limit it to 20 or less. They may be larger if we are short ceremony teams. But at our big ordeal we will have 3-4 teams going and each will do the ceremony 2-3 times (150-200 ordealists).

hendrickms24, your "a)to participate and recognize their son's achievement" is not within BSA guidelines. Observation is not the same as participating. As for recognizing the achievement that does not require their presence at the Ordeal. If parents want to come and watch that is fine, I've no problem with that at all, but they just need to be respectful enough of others to be as unobtrusive as possible. For those that say you don't have room for parents. Is there a reason you do such large groups? I'll admit that there are times the ceremony team can be exhausted after their 3rd or 4th g

I signed my first recommendation last night. This time the council will have one troop that is just going to the Jamboree without the extra tour. Saves almost $2000 from the cost. About time. What the heck is a j-phone and is it really needed to provide schedules? >>>Healthy food and drinks offered. Where is the fun in that?

yeah, this is an area that gets abused. they should be tested in the activity's conditions. a swim test in a pool is not the same as a 1500 acre lake with water temperature in the 40s. but do you make everyone take the test in the cold water? if his description is correct then this trip should have been limited to strong swimmers. they could have gone to a lower altitude lake with water on the 60s and air temp in the 80s and avoided the issues.

Please don't give national ideas.

>So far the scout has not come back to me. I have asked the scoutmaster if they keep >records for Scout camping or camping with the scouts for the members of the troop. >The only answer I have got was summer camp. As of right know, that is 5 days/nites of >camping. I believe he has been to summer camp 3 times. 15 days/nites, but I am counting >that as 5 days/nites. >Am I right??? Yes. Only one week (in this case 5 nights) of long term camping may count. Indecently, this is also the case with the OA. SO, either he has other camping or they powers that be all

Knee socks with garters and tabs. The old baker tent or a modern version in synthetic fabric with light-weight poles.

Change the approach. Few people want to hike 10 or 20 miles just to hike, at least when they first start out. But hiking to a remote Indian ruin, to a water fall & swimming hole or an old RR tunnel is another thing entirely. Find some cool destinations than happen to be 10 mile hikes. You might even need to start with some shorter ones just to get them started. Once they start hiking, and find out they like it just to hike, then you can start getting them to do a 20 miler just because.

So, you wouldn't have had an issue if they hadn't said they would stay on the perimeter?

The tents that staff use at our resident camps are miserable little hovels that I would not wish on anyone. But even then, I don't see how more than a week of that could be counted.

Call you council office and ask to speak to the Scout Executive (SE). Tell him your story, that your son was beaten on a scout campout and that the unit does not seem to be taking corrective action. (It does not look like you have given them much of an opportunity to do this, but that no longer matters). If the troop leadership is doing their job they have already contacted the SE and reported the incident. In my experience the SE will assign a council director to investigate. At least in our council, this will typically result in the removal of the offending youth from scouting. A crimin

Are you insinuating that helicopter parents cannot be trusted? Say it isn't so!

You would have to be ask the developers to know for sure. The connection to Hersey & Blanchard's leadership model is obvious and it looks like the "training" model is shoe-horned onto that. Even the Trainer's EDGE has very little about the training method. This came from a school of business not a school of education.(This message has been edited by jet526)

They do not need to be Scout hikes. They do need to be hikes approved by the MB Counselor. Scouts encourage the buddy system, ideally with 2 sets of buddies. I don't recall it being a rule, but would certainly recommend a minimum of 4. That allows someone to stay with an injured member of the party with the other two still having a buddy.

EDGE is based on Tuckman's (through Hersey & Blanchard) team development model (Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing). Where each step is based on the leader's role in the team at a particular stage (Telling, Selling, Participating and Delegating). I suspect that EDGE itself is a BSA thing to avoid royalties, as I have not encountered it anywhere else. Look for Situational Leadership and you should find some things. I do wish that both the Trainer's EDGE and WB would include a bibliography.

Every 3 years? Even Blanchard only puts out a new book every 4-5 years. hmmm...There was a revision in October of '09, I took it in April of '09. Just glancing through it looks the same, I'd have to do a text comparison to find the changes but they have to be very minor indeed. Considering it is only required for WB/NYLT staff, you would think they could cover the changes in WB prep. "It is meant to supplement the practice offered through Wood Badge and NYLT staff development, with a focus on the participant, while raising the level of skill a trainer brings to the staff experience."

SP: Service to the lodge takes many forms. I may go to an ordeal a year and the occasional chapter meeting. I've never been to a lodge activity other than a banquet. What I do is support the OA in the unit. Run a program that produces a few arrowmen each year and hosts a couple ceremony teams. I only wear my sash at OA functions as I rarely represent the lodge any other time.

Considering that it was a wonderful day on Saturday, sunny with the high above 75, I would be surpised if the scout didn't decide to go for a dip to cool off. I certainly would have been willing to give it a go based on how warm it was where we were.

Any idea why Trainer's EDGE would expire?